


Isaac and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Valentine's Day

by sirius16



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Bullymagnet and Electrobullymagnet if you squint really hard, Content approved by SCAR, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, not enough that it's worth mentioning in the tags, which would be rude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29448090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirius16/pseuds/sirius16
Summary: It sure seemed like the entire universe was conspiring to make Isaac's Valentine's Day weekend as miserable as possible. But was it?
Relationships: Isaac O'Connor/Maxwell Puckett
Kudos: 8
Collections: Sin Corps





	Isaac and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Valentine's Day

**Author's Note:**

> I felt inspired and wanted to do something for this holiday. So I whipped this up together in a few hours just in time. I love these boys

Isaac sighed. ' _Another Valentine's Day._ ' Well, it wasn't quite Valentine's Day _yet_. That wouldn't be for another couple of days. But since Valentine's Day was on a Sunday that year, the school was celebrating in advance, on the Friday just days before.

It was the nearly the end of the school day and as he predicted, he had yet to receive a single Valentine. But although he had anticipated as much, it still didn't make the reality any less depressing. Watching all his classmates give and receive Valentines, he felt like a ghost on the outside looking in, as, opposed to one of the people in his class.

And it wasn't just limited to his class. It seemed the entire seventh grade except for him got a valentine. Even the quote-unquote "losers" had each other to trade valentines with. Heck some even managed to land the stray sympathy valentine from really nice girls. It almost felt like the entire seventh grade was engaged in a conscious conspiracy to ignore him.

Isaac sighed again. ' _Well, that's not exactly fair._ ' Since his fight with Max, Isaac had been making more of an effort to be introspective, realizing that he had damaged a lot of relationships in the past and almost damaged… whatever it was he had going on with Max. ' _I haven't exactly been the most approachable guy. It's no wonder nobody even bothered._ ' Another sigh, and a pang in his heart.

The bell rang, signaling the end of his final class of the week. The class buzzed with excitement, eager to go out with friends, or, for the lucky few, _special friends_. Even his teacher, a normally grouchy middle aged man, seemed to be in a good, and in quite the hurry to leave class. ' _Even Mr. Alexeyev has a valentine,_ ' Isaac observed with resignation.

Isaac considered skipping Activity Club for the day and heading straight home, not really feeling in the mood to continue interacting with other people. But on the other hand, he didn't want to restart the bad habit of skipping out on club meetings just because he was moody. He was _trying_ to be better after all. With another long drawn out sigh, Isaac made his way over to the Activity Club afterschool classroom.

' _At least I'll get to see Max,_ ' Isaac reasoned, trying to psyche himself up. For reasons he didn't quite understand but had suspicions about, being around the sarcastic boy managed to pick up his mood. Even when he was being the most insufferable little shit, Max managed to make smile. Even if sometimes those smiles were on the inside while his face was contorted into an expression that could only be described as "screeching irritation". Yes, Max could get Isaac to feel a lot of things.

Isaac turned into the hallway where the Activity Club was only to be arrested by the sight in front of him. There was Max—who had also been on his way to meet up with the Activity Club—being given a valentine. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it looked like Max had already received quite a few valentines that day already, if the assortment of red and pink paper bulging out of his backpack was any indication. To add insult to injury, the girl giving Max a valentine wasn't even Max's age. She was a seventh grader, one of _Isaac's **classmates**_ even. Max was only a sixth grader.

Isaac felt a flurry of emotions. There was the familiar anger, and he could already hear King C telling him to give in to it. And of course, jealousy—jealous of whom exactly, Isaac didn't know quite yet. And heartbreak, Isaac felt his heart ripping in two.

Max picked his head up and noticed Isaac, only having a moment to register the hurt expression on his face before the ginger boy turned around and ran off.

* * *

Isaac arrived back at school late on Monday, three days later, feeling miserable. Valentine's Day had been a day ago and Isaac hadn't received anything. It had taken Isaac hours to get out of bed that day, and he had already missed his first three classes of the day. ' _At least all the Valentine's Day stuff is over already._ '

But it seemed that the rest of the school hadn't gotten the memo. Or maybe it was Isaac who was out the loop. The school seemed to be more in a Valentine's Day state of mind than it had been the previous Friday. A lot of not only the students, but even faculty were acting weirdly lovey dovey and had paired up. And even the Valentine's Day decor had been taken down, things still felt inexplicably _pink_.

By the end of the school day, Isaac was positive that something unnatural was at work. More than one of his classes had been effectively canceled because his classmates were too distracted to focus. One of his classes had ended prematurely because the teacher was visited by another faculty member—who turned out to be his boyfriend—and dragged him out of class. Another one of his teachers didn't show up at all. His last class with Mr. Alexeyev seemed to be the only normal class he had that day.

After his final class, Isaac rushed over to the Activity Club, ignoring the part of him that wanted nothing to do with that hallway after what had he seen transpire the last time he was there. Fortunately, he was not met with the sight of one of his classmates giving Max a valentine that time.

He did see the secret Student Council President, Cody, making out with that Hijack kid ' _Jack? Jeeves? Jeff?_ ' Isaac didn't remember his name. He even saw Dimitri getting rather hot and heavy with some brunette shortstack in a sweater vest. Something he wanted to ask his fellow spectral about, but he wasn't sure if they had that kinda relationship, considering how he'd left things with Dimitri.

The Activity Club turned out to not be much help either. Spender was compromised, he had let Mr. Garcia—who Isaac had suspected was his boyfriend for a while. He clearly couldn't discuss anything spirit related with him.

He did, however, receive incontrovertible evidence that some kind of weird spell had been cast over the school. Isabel and Ed were in a corner, acting unnaturally cutesie with each other. Isaac shuddered. To say that seeing Isabel, of all people, acting like _that_ was weird would've been a huge understatement.

Isaac turned and left the Activity Club, determined to find whatever spirit was tormenting him like this. Blue spectral energy began seeping from his hands as both he and King C were getting ready to fight. He started looking all over the school and bumped into Max soon after.

Max wasn't alone. For some reason, Johnny was accompanying him, and was being his usual obnoxious self.

Isaac had to fight the urge to cut and run away from Max. His heart was still raw after what he had seen the other day. But after letting jealousy and his emotions almost ruin his relationship with Max once, he wasn't about to make that same mistake. He steeled himself mentally and went up to Max, hoping his face wasn't giving him away. "Max," Isaac greeted, though more curtly than he would've liked.

"Hey Isaac, you also looking for whatever's causing everyone to act weird?"

Isaac gave Max a look, subtly cocking his head in Johnny's direction. Though not subtle enough. Johnny caught on to the fact that Isaac was gesturing to him. "What are you looking at?"

It was then that Max picked up on what Isaac was getting at. "Oh, don't worry. Johnny's obnoxious but he's cool, we can trust him."

"Hey! Who are ya calling obnoxious?" Johnny bellowed, pulling Max into a headlock.

Though Max had an annoyed expression on his face, Isaac had been ~~stalking~~ attentive enough to Max to know that his expression was more amused than unamused. He felt a familiar pang of jealousy. ' _Those two, they're not… No. They clearly haven't been affected like everyone else has. But then why are they…?_ '

"Anyway, I brought Johnny to help me look. We split up and covered everywhere on the second floor and the first floor, from the stairs to the cafeteria anyway." Max explained.

"I already explored the first floor, and nothing," Isaac responded.

"So that just leaves the roof," Johnny interjected, somewhat startling Isaac who had already been in the process of ignoring Johnny's presence.

"The roof?" Max and Isaac asked in unison.

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Come on, I'll show ya." He grabbed both of them by the arms and yanked them to a staircase neither boy know was there. He pulled) dragged them up the steps until, to the surprise of the other two boys, they found themselves on the roof.

"I didn't realize this place had rooftop access," Max remarked.

"Me neither," Isaac agreed.

The spirit they were looking for was indeed on the roof top. It was a chubby baby cherub/cupid type. Its entire outfit seemed to consist of a singular fabric wrapped around his body, the color a gradient pink to red. On its face were a pair of rose tinted sunglasses, and there was a red heart in the middle of one of the lenses and a red rose on the other. There was a heart and rose tattooed on its face as well, only they were pink instead of red and were positioned on opposite sides of its face. It stood in the middle of a large, heart shaped garden filled with red and pink roses.

Johnny took a few aggressive steps forward. "What the heck are you supposed to be anyway? Some kind of cupid?"

Isaac was shocked. "He can see it?" he asked Max.

"Well yeah. Didn't I tell you? He's cool. What do you think I meant?"

Before Isaac could respond, the spirit interjected. "He thought the two of you were, ya know." He made a circle with his pointer finger and thumb with one hand and jabbed the pointer finger from his other hand in and out of the circle. 👉👌

Isaac flushed at the innuendo, understanding what the lewd gesture meant immediately. He started sputtering, trying and failing to muster up any words in his defense.

The spirit laughed at this and kept going. "After all, Isaac over here has a little crush on Max, don't you Isaac?"

Max turned to face Isaac. "Just ignore him, he's clearly trying to get into our heads—"

Isaac cut Max off. "He's right."

"Wait what? Who's right? About what?" Max asked.

"The spirit is—" "Call me James" "—about me" Isaac confessed.

The other two boys whirled around to face the oldest boy, shocked at the confession. They stared at each other until their concentration was broken by the spirit breaking out in laughter.

"What's so funny?" Max asked.

Johnny cracked his Knuckles. "You think outing people is funny? That's not cool, man. And now I'm gonna mess your face up," Johnny declared, balling his hands into fists. Grey spectral energy started seeping from his fists, and then they were lit ablaze by spectral flames.

"Johnny's a medium???" Isaac asked.

Before he could get an answer, Johnny let out a battle cry and charged at "James" with his flaming fists. But the cherub like spirit seemed unbothered by this and yawned. Before Johnny could get too far into the rose garden, he found himself immobilized by vines of roses that sprang from the ground and wrapped themselves around Johnny's legs.

"Let go of me!" Johnny bellowed, swinging his flaming fists in the air impotently.

Isaac created a spectral cumulonimbus and axe kicked it, sending a current of lightning bouncing on the ground like a skipping stone until it hit the spirit.

The spirit yelled as the electricity coursed through his body, and the distraction caused enough slack in the vines that Johnny could get loose and escape, making sure to back out of the rose garden entirely.

Johnny took his still flaming fists and brought them down to the roses, intending to burn them.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," James warned. But Johnny was undeterred and thrust out his palm, letting lose a stream of fire like a flamethrower.

"AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH," James screamed in agony as the roses were all burned to a crisp. When Johnny finished, James' skin looked like cracked porcelain. His glasses lay broken on the floor, revealing not eyes, but two empty sockets glowing bright red with rage. The air was filled with a sweet smelling pink mist-like substance, though none of the boys paid that particular detail any mind.

"You're in for it now!" James yelled as he conjured up a pink and rose gold bow and quiver full of heart shaped arrows with the same color scheme. He grabbed 3 arrows from his quiver, notched them, and let them fly. A split second after, another 3 arrows were notched despite James not pulling any from his quiver, and he let those fly too. He shot a blizzard of arrows at the boys.

"Isaac! Thundercloud!" Max called out.

Isaac nodded and slammed his hands together and then pulled them apart again, creating another cumulonimbus. This time Max took his bat—coated in black spectral energy—and slammed it through the cloud. Johnny, coincidentally, also slammed his hands together, and together, the three created a pulse wave that blocked and repelled James' arrows, even returning many of them to sender.

"YOUUUUUUUU!" James thundered furiously before bursting into red and pink rose petals, defeated.

The three boys stared at the spot James used to be, none of them really sure what had happened. The rose garden faded out of existence, returning the roof to its natural state of gray asphalt.

"Uhhhh, OK then?" Max said, breaking the silence.

"I guess we should check to see if everyone is back to normal?" Isaac replied.

The other two vocalized their agreement and nodded and made their way back downstairs. Most of the students and faculty had left for the day, but among those who remained, they seemed to be back to normal.

They passed by Dimitri—who was still hanging out with Collin, though they were no longer making out. Isaac accidentally locked eyes with Dimitri, but the other boy nodded and even smiled at Isaac a little, letting them know they were cool.

They spotted Johnny's crew a bit later. "I'm out, pleasure doing business with you gentlemen," Johnny announced. He grabbed both boys' hands and shook them up and down vigorously before taking off to go catch up with his other friends.

Moments later, Isaac and Max were alone in the hallway. Isaac turned to face Max, only to be shocked when he saw an expression he didn't think the other boy was capable of making. Max seemed a little shy, bashful even. "Max?"

Max dropped his backpack to the floor, unzipped it, reached inside and pulled out a large pink envelope. "Sorry, I wanted to give this to you on Friday but you ran away before I had the chance, and then the next time I saw you we had to go hunt down James and—" Max shut his mouth, realizing that he was rambling. "Anyway, here." He handed the envelope to Isaac. "See ya tomorrow," Max said, walking away.

Eager, Isaac tore open the envelope with his hands and pulled out a card. He opened it, curious about it said. He read the card, and was grinning uncontrollably by the time he reached the end, his heart feeling lighter than it had in months.

"Yes Max, I'd love to," Isaac whispered to himself in the empty hallway. He left the hallway and went home, an unshakeable smile on his face the entire time

**Author's Note:**

> Rather unpolished for my tastes (didn't have time for a beta reader) but oh well, something's better than nothing right?


End file.
